Visual Liturgy Blog

We have just published a new content module for Visual Liturgy Live. You can download it by using Online Update, and if you’re not sure how to do that, I’ve posted a reminder for you in our VL Live support forums, which also tell you more about the module. 

This is our second news item of the day, so don’t forget to read the previous item about subscriptions if you haven’t already done so.

Earlier this week, we extended a number of  VL Live Year-1 subscriptions to December 13th 2008. If your subscription to VL Live had expired before today, or was due to expire between today and December 13th, it will have been extended to December 13th.

A significant update of content for VL Live is now available for you to download, and because of the way we’ve extended those subscriptions, it is available for every VL user to download free-of-charge, as part of the price you paid for your Year 1 subscription.

Further information about managing your VL Live subscription is available in the Latest News section of the VL Live forums.

Some of you have noticed that your VL Live subscriptions have expired and that there is currently no option to renew them on the VL Live website. This is because we have not yet finished our publishing programme for Year 1, and we do not intend to ask you to pay for Year 2 until we have done that. Continue reading →

…on Monday morning 3rd November.

CHP is about to begin a release programme of several Visual Liturgy Live update modules, which will enhance your copy of Visual Liturgy Live with new content, and which will also include some corrections to existing content.

Continue reading →

CHP has now announced its outline publishing programme for VL Live for 2008 and 2009, with the following key features:

• Year 1 subscriptions will all run until at least All Saints’ Day (Saturday 1st November) 2008.
• All VL Live users who bought and installed their copies of VL Live before 1st November 2007 will therefore have their subscriptions extended free-of-charge until 1st November 2008
• All VL Live users who bought and installed their copies of VL Live after 1st November will have their Year 1 subscriptions until 1 year after the date they registered their software.
• The publishing programme for Common Worship: Times and Seasons will be completed during Year 1, before 1st November 2008.

The Year 1 publishing programme will also include

• Some improvements and additions to Daily Prayer content and smart templates
• Some new seasonal and occasional templates

The future publishing programme, beginning with Year 2in November 2008, will include

• Further improvements and additions to Daily Prayer content and smart templates
• Common Worship: Festivals
• The Book of Common Prayer
• Common Worship: Ordination Services
• Proclaiming the Passion
• Continuing improvements to service templates
• Continuing provision of content to support daily prayer
• New service templates

Visual Liturgy Live subscriptions will be held at £52.00 per annum for year 2 and that price will be held until 2009.

Comments are not allowed here; but please feel free to discuss on the Visual Liturgy forum.

Church House Publishing (CHP) has a continuing programme of development for Visual Liturgy Live and we need your help. We’re looking  for people with a wide range of experience and expertise to assist with content development during 2008 and 2009. Our aim is to significantly improve and augment the content in Visual Liturgy, to enhance its role in planning and preparing worship for all occasions.

We’re planning a significant amount of editorial work for 2008-09 so that we can provide the following content for Visual Liturgy Live

• The entire Common Worship library
• The entire Book of Common Prayer
• The complete set of daily lections for the annual lectionaries
• New and improved service templates

Amongst the areas of Visual Liturgy in need of development are:

• Liturgical texts;
• Service Templates which need enhancing
• New Service Templates which need to be designed
• The lectionary
• The Psalter
• Themes
• Reading Plans

Some subject areas, such as Daily Prayer, will benefit from long-term maintenance as the service  templates evolve and the daily lectionary is compiled year-on-year, so we would like to hear from you if you were interested in taking responsibility for subjects such as Daily Prayer, or lectionaries.

What skills are we looking for?

Some related editorial work is also planned for other CHP publishing platforms such as websites, and Visual Liturgy has a future on the internet in some form, too. The skills required therefore range from

traditional editorial skills such as data-entry and proof-reading, to
technical skills such as the use of markup languages and web-presentation tools.

Above all we need  enthusiasm for and knowledge of liturgy, as Visual Liturgy is designed to bring liturgy to life in the service of the Church; training and technical support can always be provided if necessary.

Applicants should ideally have experience of worship-planning using Visual Liturgy (VL) or similar products, or be willing to learn Visual Liturgy skills. Training and support will be provided for all participants to improve their knowledge and skills relating to Visual Liturgy. Participation is encouraged from people with experience of and interest in a diversity of worship styles.

The Rewards

Your expenses will be fully reimbursed, and your work will be rewarded in various ways, ranging from participation in early-release programmes and a discount scheme operating in CHP’s online shop,  to professional rates of pay for editorial and technical work where appropriate.

What to do next

If you are interested in participating or assisting CHP in this programme of work, and you have something to offer no matter how much or how little, please email Church House Publishing’s New Media Manager andrew.sweeney@c-of-e.org.uk giving the following details:

• The skills you can offer
• Your experience of worship-planning using VL or equivalent applications
• The approximate amount of time you can offer and the basis on which you would like to be engaged (for example:
  – 20 hours per week on a professional basis
  – A few hours per month on a volunteer basis
  – Etc.)
• the preferred area of VL or content preparation in which you would like to participate (for example VL template improvement, or markup of new liturgical texts).

We plan for Visual Liturgy Live to have a long and successful life, so this announcement is not date-sensitive; whenever you see this announcement, please get in touch with CHP. We look forward to hearing from you.

Saints on Earth is a book edited by John K. Darch and Stuart K. Burns which was published in 2004. It includes a CD which installs into Visual Liturgy 4. When installed, a hyperlink to the biography appears on the Visual Liturgy welcome page on each Saint’s day, and you can right-click a Saint’s day in the calendar and view the biography.

Since Saints on Earth appeared when Visual Liturgy 4 was current, the installer does not work with VL Live. However, we have tweaked VL Live to support it properly. Please note that you need the Saints on Earth CD for this to work; it is not a standard feature of VL itself.

To use Saints on Earth, first update VL Live to the latest version using online update (a new update was posted today). You also need to install the latest content. Then run VL Live, and use File – Import module to navigate to the module on the Saints on Earth CD. Import the module, and the links will appear in VL Live. Once imported, you do not need to have the Saints on Earth CD in the drive to use it.

More details on Saints on Earth are here.